Pay no attention to the people behind the curtain

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Mark Block's Student Film Revealed!

by folkbum

Why, yes, I have almost entirely given up on this blogging business. But sometimes a s story presents itself that is just too WTFish to pass up. Like this video:

I mean, seriously. It's like a bad noir monologue--complete with cigarette!--accidentally spoken aloud and filmed by the last guy to be picked for partners in Camerawork 101, drunk. Like the Cain tour bus mistakenly got the "delivery" intended for the Snoop Dogg bus just before the rented cameras showed up. The creepy Cain smile at the end is, um, unfortunate. Especially because, unlike Block, Cain can actually be telegenic and attractive in frame when the filmmakers aren't busy imitating sixth-grade-does-reality-TV-plus-smoking-makes-you-look-cool.

Mark Block, if you recall, was recently touted by Wisconsin's largest daily newspaper for, quote, "direct[ing] Cain's ascent." The paper managed not to talk in that story about all the times Mark Block has been disciplined or nearly so for breaking campaign laws and rules. (You have to rely on folks like xoff and zeedub for that.)

But the savvy thing about Craig Gilbert's report there is that it pretty clearly shows neither Cain nor Block entirely on their rockers. Leave aside that Block seems not to know when to use "who" vs. "that"; instead, listen to the crazy:

Back in January, Block brought Cain unannounced into the Washington Bureau of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, asking a reporter if he'd like to meet the next president of the United States.

Today, he projects that same slightly giddy faith in the man, as well as the conservative movement he's tapping into. Only now it's with an added sense of wonder, because his candidate has at least temporarily achieved liftoff.

"This thing is so deep that anybody that says they understand it is lying to you," he said.

Huh? "This thing"? Which is what, exactly--the unfortunate transposition of book tour with campaign?

At some point, someone's going to have to have an intervention. As James Fallows notes, this isn't the first Cain video to make you wonder if "this thing" isn't an elaborate Onion-style hoax.